Research culture and environment – collaboration and interdisciplinarity
17 Jan 2025
We are passionate about bringing people together, combining expertise from across disciplines, roles and sectors to address society’s biggest questions. Find out how we nurture and accelerate interdisciplinary and collaborative research and the support available to you.
Good research culture is an integral part of how we work together here at Manchester. It is the way that we collaborate, communicate, and interact with each other; the behaviours, attitudes, and values that shape how our research is developed, conducted, and used; and the mechanisms by which we support research and recognise and reward that work.
Interdisciplinary research sits at the heart of the University’s strategy and plays a pivotal role in our research culture. The major societal and scientific challenges we currently face often demand large-scale multi or interdisciplinary responses, grounded in meaningful collaboration and co-production with internal and external partners. However, we recognise that the development of productive relationships and innovative ideas may require additional support across all stages of the research lifecycle.
We provide structural and financial support to catalyse the development of new interdisciplinary research programmes and increase the inter and multi-disciplinary capabilities of our researcher community. This enables our professional services and academic colleagues to convene diverse and dynamic teams that mobilise their respective strengths to search for creative solutions to the world’s thorniest problems – together.
Opportunities and initiatives
Some of the different opportunities and initiatives that are available are listed below:
- Our five research platforms – Creative Manchester, Digital Futures, Healthier Futures, Sustainable Futures and Policy@Manchester, provide focus and resource to connect, drive and amplify interdisciplinary collaborations between academics, faculties and institutes.
- Our 22 interdisciplinary research institutes combine disciplines to facilitate leading-edge research and meet the external demands of government, business and communities.
- University of Manchester Research Institute (UMRI) provides funding for pump priming activities that will lead to an increase in successful interdisciplinary research across the University, and supports new partnerships across disciplines through short ‘discipline hopping’ research placements.
- The Team Research programme provides a suite of training and development activities to increase awareness of the Team Research (Team Science) interdisciplinary model.
- The Interdisciplinary Research Professional Services Network brings colleagues who support interdisciplinary research across the University together to share intelligence and build collaborations.
The Faculty Research and Innovation teams work closely together and provide support with interdisciplinary research and collaboration:
Lived experiences and further support
Take a look at our case studies, showcasing how colleagues have made the most of opportunities and support for interdisciplinary research and collaboration. Be sure to look at our new Research Culture and Environment Hub for current and upcoming opportunities.
Finally, please do check out the UMRI pump priming funding call, which launched on 14 January, providing awards of up to £50K across one year to explore new ideas and forge exciting collaborations that push the boundaries of interdisciplinarity.
You can find out more about our support for co-production in the forthcoming update on our next research culture and environment theme, ‘open and impactful research’ at the start of February.